This invention relates generally to protective gloves. More particularly, this invention relates to protective sports gloves having a joint protector to provide protection for the knuckles of the hand of the wearer of the glove.
In many contact sports, it is essential to intentionally strike the participants of the sport. Depending on the given sport, certain body parts are under greater exposure and stress than others. For example, in sports such as Lacrosse, hockey, and other sports in which a stick type object is an essential part of the game, a participant's hands are exposed to a large amount of contact and as such it is important to protect those hands during the course of play of the sport. It is also important to maintain a high level flexibility in the participant's hands in order to adequately participate in the sport. As such, a protective glove in sports should both protect and retain flexibility.
Various protective sporting gloves have been developed over the years for use in lacrosse, hockey, and other similar contact sports. These gloves are designed to protect the user of the glove, or player of the sport, against impacts and blows to their hands during participation in the sporting event. Unfortunately, as the protection provided by these gloves increases, the user of these prior art gloves experiences a reduction in the amount of flexibility he has in his hand due to the configuration of the glove. This reduction in flexibility can substantially reduce the effectiveness and level of play of a participant wearing the glove. Traditionally, however, as the level of flexibility allowed by a protective glove would remain high, the protection provided by that glove would be limited.
There are several areas of the hand that need to maintain an increased level of flexibility and yet still need a high level of protection. These areas include the various joints of the fingers and hand including the knuckles. For example, the knuckle joints of a participant's hand need to maintain as close to the full range of flexibility as possible in order to properly grip the equipment used during the sport, and sometimes the other participants in the sport.
Traditionally, compounding this issue is the very padding located at the knuckle areas. In order to sustain as complete of a range of motion as possible for the fingers of the hand, the padding or protection on the fingers should not substantially restrict the flexibility of the finger. Otherwise, the amount of the rotational range in the fingers of the hand when flexed will be limited due to the increased padding and protective materials in the glove.
For example, as the fingers move from an extend position to a curled position, padding located on the back of the glove above a knuckle will move from being adjacent to one another to create a gap of over ninety degrees. As such, additional protection is needed to fill this gap. However, when the additional protection was added, the additional protection reduced the range of movement of the fingers, especially when attempting to extend the fingers
Most of the prior art has used segmented padding pieces in order to attempt to both protect the hand of the participant and maintain flexibility. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,339, U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,572, U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,242, U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,916, U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,720, U.S. Pat. No. 6,085,354, U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,769, U.S. Pat. No. 6,543,057, U.S. Pat. No. 6,550,069, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,643,844, all disclose various sports gloves having segmented padding sections. Some of these prior art gloves have attempted to specifically protect the knuckles of a participant while maintaining flexibility. However, these prior art attempts have either tried to create overlapping padding, add a piece of soft cloth material to cover the gaps between the padding where the piece spans from one padding section to another or used cloth material folded and placed within the padding joint.
What is needed then is a joint protector for a sports glove that provides improved protection of the joints of the hand while maintaining flexibility at those joints for the wearer of the glove as the wearer participates in the sport. A glove containing this protective joint is lacking in the prior art.